TheFutureParty
A Community-based Media Company
A decentralized movement is happening on the outskirts of social media: Mastodon’s CEO is transferring ownership of the social platform to a new nonprofit, and a new initiative aims to protect the infrastructure that Bluesky is built on from the whims of billionaire owners. The Big Picture: Amid X’s transformation under Elon Musk and existential changes happening […]
TikTok started making its case against the US government’s divest-or-ban law in front of the Supreme Court on Friday… and so far, it seems that the Justices are siding with upholding the law. That means TikTok could really be gone on January 19th when the law takes effect. Why It Hits: We don’t need to make the […]
Meta announced that it’s swapping out its third-party fact-checkers with a community-notes model over the next few months in hopes of fighting back against alleged bias and censorship. The Big Picture: Meta is once again changing with the tide. After nearly a decade of trying to thwart extremism, hateful speech, and misinformation on its platforms, the company has decided that […]
After a week of bad press, Meta has seemingly deleted its nonhuman chatbot profiles from Instagram that quietly rolled out in 2023… signaling a potential retreat from its plan to offer a community of AI users. Why It Hits: Meta has been trying to find a way to make chatbots across its social media ecosystem a thing to […]
Platforms such as Partiful and Timeleft are using their apps as a jumping off point to get people to meet IRL… and they’re finally taking off in popularity. The Big Picture: Plenty has been written about how social media has made people more connected than ever, but also lonelier than ever. While there’s been many benefits of creating digital communities, people […]
Software company Flipboard is set to unveil an app next year called Surf that connects platforms across the fediverse (the open, social web that Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and others are a part of) in customizable and interactive feeds. The Big Picture: Fediverse CEO Mike McCue is betting that the future of social media will not be about walled-garden […]
While direct-to-streaming movies dominated the COVID years in a rush to catch up with Netflix’s original library, it turns out that releasing movies in theaters is really the best way to capture the most engagement when it lands on a streamer. The Big Picture: A lot of money was spent to ramp up production during […]
Snapchat is getting ready for TikTok’s impending exit from the US with a unified creator-monetization program for its Stories and Spotlight features. Why It Hits: TikTok’s ban will leave a hole in the social media and creator economy ecosystem. Prepare for Snapchat, YouTube, and Instagram to wage an all-out war for cultural dominance… and advertiser dollars. Behind the […]
BuzzFeed sold First We Feast, the studio behind the popular Hot Ones interview series, for $82.5 million to a group of investors that will let the company run as an independent media company. The Big Picture: BuzzFeed has been hungry to find a buyer for First We Feast to pay down its substantial debt and swat away investor Vivek Ramaswamy’s […]
LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong announced the paper is working on a “bias meter” that would give readers context of any bias in articles and potentially give people a version of the article from an opposite perspective. The Big Picture: With the mainstream media losing trust — fairly or unfairly — among so many Americans, publishers are looking […]